


White Knuckles (maybe it’s not so bad)

by utlaginn



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anal Sex, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Canon Universe, Crying, Crying During Sex, Delinquent Keith (Voltron), Discipline, Dubious Consent, Explicit Consent, First Time, Gen, How is that not a tag, In chapter 1, M/M, Non-Sexual Spanking, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Scolding, Sort Of, Spanking, Virgin Keith (Voltron), for the spanking not the sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:40:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27099763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utlaginn/pseuds/utlaginn
Summary: Shiro asks Keith what he can do to help keep him in line.It becomes A Whole Thing.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 102





	1. so come and let it all out, let it bleed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It goes without saying that this is absolutely amoral and I should be and am ashamed of myself so don’t @ me
> 
> Title from the song by [OK Go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40iooeQdo2k).
> 
> ***
> 
> EDIT 10/25/20: Edited for grammar. Ugh so many typos I'm sorry

“I’ll take care of it,” Shiro says to the senior offer, after Keith starts the fistfight in the middle of the sim lab.

Keith doesn’t know what, exactly, that means—but he thinks maybe the Lieutenant Commander knows. The one just two levels of commission above Shirogane, with whom the latter is negotiating for mercy on Keith’s behalf.

They _should_ just kick him out; they shouldn’t leave any more outbursts like this to chance. Because, okay, this time Keith really did push it too far. It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last. But he’s sixteen years old—too old to have to be told to keep his hands off other students. This is not something he should be getting a second chance on.

Nor should they let a junior officer like Junior Lieutenant Shirogane, who’s barely old enough to legally drink, “take care of it.”

Whatever, again, the fuck that means.

It’s one more thing on Keith’s long list of support for how screwed up this place actually is. That this—whatever it is—is not the first arrangement of this type between a mentor and a cadet is unthinkable.

Then again, a lot of what goes on at the Garrison beneath the cover of protocol is _deeply_ unthinkable.

Once they’re out from under the eye of the brass and in Shiro’s quarters, Shiro admits to Keith, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Well, _I_ dunno,” Keith says, flippant and furious, crossing his arms tight over his chest while he leans against Shiro’s door. “You were the one who told Lieutenant Commander Garcia that you’d take care of it.”

Shiro winces. Keith _does_ feel bad. Just minutes ago, he’d shaken Shiro’s hand in seeming agreement that he wouldn’t give up on himself—but he’s really not sure what Shiro’s supposed to do, either. He’s the child, here.

“I’m your assigned mentor, Keith. I’m gonna do whatever I can to help you.”

Oh, right.

Shiro said he’s never give up on Keith.

Apparently that also means following up on every last misstep he makes.

Sure, Keith has a problem following directives. What does that matter? When doing what comes natural to him crushes every last simulator score in the Garrison’s fifty-year database? Shiro is the one who said Keith would be getting a second chance, here. Is Keith going to waste that second chance, being mediocre? Toeing the line like some kind of… well, Keith doesn’t even have a proper metaphor for it, that’s how far out of his realm being that good, _that_ by-the-book, is to him.

That’s not how he got where he is.

Shiro must see the mutiny and the distrust on his face, because he looks at him with both exasperation and patience.

And abruptly, Keith knows very well that he’s being unfair. He’s gone too far. He should be in trouble. He should be in _more_ trouble than he’s apparently in.

Keith watches Shiro tip his head back, see the way his jaw works as he stares at the ceiling as if it has the answers. And the guilt settles deep under his ribcage. He’s not sorry, now—he’s still too angry, for that. But he knows, somewhere hidden and ugly-certain, that Shiro is going to make him sorry.

That’s where this is headed. He’s seen the way adults like Shiro break down. He knows the way they try for patience, and try and _try_ , and then give up. Shiro’s going to say something that will undermine his previous words—“ _I will never give up on you_ ”—and he’ll give Keith one more reason to believe that the most precious words Shiro’s said to him so far—“ _You can do this_ ”—are bullshit, the way every good thing Keith has ever been told is bullshit.

Shiro comes to him, then. He walks across the room, cuts away the distance between them, and puts both hands on Keith, gripping tight over collarbone and shoulder. Keith ducks in on himself a little, tucks his chin down. He hates that reaction, but he can’t help it. But Shiro does back off a little. Shifts his grip wider and more reassuring. Holds him in, rather than pressing him down.

Shiro does not say, “ _I’m not going to hurt you_.”

Those words have usually been lies, and Keith doesn’t think he’d believe them, now—even from Shiro.

“What are you so afraid of?” Shiro does ask. His fingertips dig in against Keith’s skin, and Keith hopes they leave bruises.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Keith says.

But his mouth goes so, so dry, as he speaks. And he knows Shiro can hear the way he swallows.

“Then why are you doing this to yourself?” Shiro finally asks. “Believe me, I know what you’re doing. I know that type of control. You make yourself enough of a target that when you fail, it can’t possibly be your fault.”

Keith looks up at Shiro, then. For an agonizing moment, Keith thinks he’s going to cry. But when he finally meets Shiro’s eyes, the rage comes back, full force. He gets Shiro’s hands off him with a break he learned from some self-defense class a counselor once made him take so he could stand up against the meaner kids in those early group homes, so he would stop ending up with broken bones.

Too much of a liability for the insurance company, probably.

Crushing himself back against the wall, Keith finds that he is a little sorry for the overreaction, since Shiro’s response to it is to take a step back from him.

But he’s still spitting mad.

“You can play benevolent all you want, but I know at the end of the day you’re just as eager to make me into something I’m not as they as are.” Keith nods roughly at the door. “Possibly more so.”

Shiro sighs. He doesn’t take another step back, but somehow, it feels like he does. “So you think I’m just an extension of the Garrison.”

“No!” This does frustrate Keith, because that isn’t what he means, at all. “Why do you think I’m still here talking to you?”

“Then, you want to be here?”

_Yes_.

Keith looks off, away from Shiro and his intense expression, but yes. He rocks a little, back on his heels, trying to get himself to say it out loud.

“…Yeah?” he finally answers

“I didn’t hear you. What was that?”

Now he meets Shiro’s eyes. “Yes. I want to be here.”

“And why?”

“…Because you said I can do it.”

“Sure. And what else?”

Shiro’s questions are so… kind. It’s unnerving. “…Because there are things I can do here that I couldn’t do, where I came from.”

Nodding, Shiro finally looks a little pleased. But any edge of the smile that touched his mouth vanishes as he speaks again. “Then you have to accept the premise that there’s a certain set of rules you’re going to live by. And that there’s got to be someone who can tell you what those rules are, and correct you when you don’t follow them.”

Embarrassment and indignation muddled in his gut, Keith asks, “And obviously that’s you?”

Shiro actually shrugs. “Better me than them.”

Keith laughs—and then he sees that Shiro is only half-joking.

“I mean. Even if you know that there are rules, whatever they do to you, you’ll know you deserve it— _but,_ you’ll resent it.” Shiro scratches underneath chin, absently, like he’s actually thinking about it and not just trying to make Keith squirm. “But whatever I do to you—not only do you deserve it, but you’ll know how personal it is. For both of us.”

Keith is blushing, now. Openly. And the rest of his body is starting to get on board with exactly how fucked he is. His feet won’t move; the lower half of his body feels almost shut off with anxiety and nerves. He wants to sit down on the floor, so badly, make himself smaller and less of a target, but he’s going to stand here, on his own two feet, and take whatever weird instruction Shiro is trying to give him.

“Were you physically disciplined as a child?”

_There_. Again, Keith knew—he fucking knew it was headed here. The flush jolts to the back of Keith’s neck and it physically _hurts_ , how red he feels himself go. But Shiro doesn’t look like he’s trying to embarrass him; he isn’t looking at him like it’s a rhetorical question. He wants an answer.

Keith makes himself say, “I guess.”

Shiro raises his eyebrows and it’s entirely too innocent. “You don’t remember?”

Snorting, Keith snaps, “You get knocked around in enough foster homes that they kind of start blending together. I don’t remember whether or not I earned all of it.”

This answer doesn’t deter Shiro; but nor does it banish the expectant look from his face. Somehow, he knows—he _knows_ , and he wants to make Keith say that that’s not all of it. Not by a long shot.

So Keith plays along.

“…Not…often, but yeah, my Pops…”

“Hm?”

“He thrashed me a couple times I never forgot about.”

Patient, Shiro waits for him to continue. Keith blows out a breath, feeling the petulant way his cheeks puff out.

“Just twice, actually. And both times I knew exactly why I was getting licked.”

“And whatever that reason was, did you do it again?”

Keith shakes his head. “I was playing with fire the first time. Literally, I mean—I never tried to set ants on fire or anything but I used a magnifying glass on some desert scrub and found out that you can pop the little seed pods before they flower, if the heat’s right… That’s pretty satisfying.” Keith still remembers the way they had caught; he can’t remember it without a little jolt of panic. “Unfortunately they are also extremely flammable.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you were the only little kid that had to learn that lesson the hard way.” Shiro sort of gives him an understanding grimace. “What about the second time?”

“That one… I was older, and it built up for longer.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was… look, I know people think I’m a show-off and that I get by on natural talent or whatever, but have you ever heard that there’s any assignment I haven’t completed?” Shiro shakes his head, almost kind. Keith sighs out and feels the embarrassment start to creep back in. “Well by late elementary school I figured I didn’t have to—I knew I could ace every test without studying or doing the homework. Dad found out after it had gotten really bad.”

Shiro must hear how much it takes from him to talk about this, because he just looks expectant and forgiving as he waits for the rest of the explanation.

“He talked to me about it, first off. I promised I would do better.” This hurts to think about—and is the reason Keith never promises anything without every intention of following through. “I didn’t realize he didn’t believe me. Or that he’d asked the teacher to call him if I missed even one more day of homework. So.” Keith shrugs. “He was… a great parent and he never would have hurt me the way some of my shitty foster dads did but. That was the first time anyone used a belt on me.”

Keith sighs, hard. He’s never said any of this out loud before—and yet, for some reason, he wants to explain himself to Shiro.

…Ah.

Then this is part of it. To make Keith explain; to put him exactly where he is so that he can’t put himself anywhere else, mentally. He knows exactly what’s coming to him and he knows exactly why.

To break this flow, Keith says, tone somewhere between flippant and wobbly:

“If you use a belt, though, I probably will have a panic attack.”

Shiro answers immediately. “I won’t.”

Keith is looking up at Shiro and their eye contact is so intense—too intense for this conversation-

“Unless you think it would help?”

Now Shiro does not look at all like he’s joking.

Keith’s mouth is still so dry, but he tries to lick at the seam of his lips, so at least he can open his mouth and answer. It barely helps. “Give me a chance not to need it.”

Taking pity, Shiro nods and says, “I don’t need anything but my hands to make you understand.”

A little of the flush drains out of Keith’s face. Then most of the color.

It’s surreal.

Keith is putting himself in this position on purpose. Shiro settles back against the edge of his bed, and asks Keith— _asks_ him—to take his slacks down. Keith does. Not his underwear though; Shiro doesn’t ask for that, so he doesn’t do it. Then he’s shifting across his lap—effortlessly. When Shiro’s forearm presses against his lower back, Keith’s mouth goes dry but he tries to help rather than resist. He’s not actually sure what he’s about, here; as confident as he’d sounded, he’s not sure he won’t cry, or have some kind of clichéd moment of weakness. But he moves enough getting adjusted that Shiro thinks to warn him.

“If you can’t keep your hands to yourself, Keith, I _will_ get a belt, and I will use it to strap your hands behind your back. Do you understand me?”

Keith shocks at the suggestion, but after a moment, finds himself saying, “Yes, sir.”

“You have enough self-control to take this,” Shiro adds, putting Keith in exactly the position he wants. Keith has the leverage of his elbows, and he uses it to cover his mouth even before they begin. Now that he’s here, muscle memory and justified fear have his heart beating hard and fast, and since Shiro can probably feel that, Keith doesn’t exactly feel generous enough to give him any noises.

The first strike lands hard against the middle of his ass. Shiro’s hand grips him tighter when Keith squirms at the force of it, his forearm like steel along his lower back. His toes are barely touching the floor, and he doesn’t think this is going to be at all dignified.

“I won’t make you count them, because I think we’re going to be here for a while,” Shiro adds—almost an afterthought, punctuating it with two sharp slaps, one over the crest of each cheek.

Shiro waits a moment, and then he spanks Keith again—after a long enough time that Keith almost forgets how much the first three blows hurt.

“What do you say?”

Keith gasps at another hard slap. “Yes, sir.”

It’s been a while since he’s been hit. After the first few blows, he finds that he doesn’t really remember how to cope with the pain. And he doesn’t at all know that he’s ever been in a position where he _wants_ that pain from somebody else; regardless of his attitude, and the defensive inner dialogue, he knows he should take it. It’s all… a lot.

So without his permission, his sense of self-preservation says:

“I’m sorry-”

“You’re sorry now that you’re being punished.”

Keith gasps—but weighs the truth in Shiro’s words and finds, past the embarrassed rush of blood that rises to his face, that it’s true. The statement was a reflex. And when he examines it—he has to, he hasn’t got anything else he can be doing—he doesn’t actually feel that much less recalcitrant and resentful than he did when Shiro pulled him into this room.

He’s always very good at leaning back into his own mind: to avoid the sting of a lecture or even a beating.

Keith thinks, with a distant respect for the strength in Shiro’s hold across his lower back, hand gripping his hip so he doesn’t squirm, that he probably will feel very different, and it probably won’t even take Shiro that long to make him feel it.

To make him feel genuinely sorry for what he’s done to end up here, over Shiro’s knees.

“Isn’t that right?”

Shiro punctuates this with one sharp slap to each side of his ass.

“You’re only apologizing because you’re getting spanked like a kid.”

Keith answers—in another reflex, “Yes, sir.”

He’s almost too shocked by the implication—that, yes, Shiro is treating him like a child, right now—to say anything else.

“Do you even know why I’m so angry with you?”

Keith hides his face against the sheet, at this. And he almost does start crying. He knew this was serious—knew he was in trouble, but to hear Shiro say that he’s directing any of _that_ kind of emotion at him: anger, or hurt…

He’d say it hurts worse than the four harsh blows that land on the sensitive tops of his thighs—just past where his boxers cover—but that would simply not be true.

“Ow-”

Shiro keeps going. “Unless you’ve got something helpful to say, I don’t want to hear anything else out of that smart mouth of yours. Understood?”

Keith lowers his head between his shoulders, nodding with his forehead against the sheets.

Shiro stops. Asks, “Keith?”

And the silence and respite from the pain lasts long enough that when Shiro cracks his hand against the top of Keith’s right thigh, Keith yells his answering, “Yes, sir!”

Shiro hums at this. “Don’t bite your lip. You might bite through it.”

As he continues altering blows between the sensitive flesh of his thighs, Shiro gives Keith good reason to think that that is true.

Ultimately, yeah, he cries. It goes on for enough time that Keith feels how hot and overworked the skin is even underneath his boxers, enough for it to throb between every single strike so there’s barely a break between one and the next. Anyway he kind of expected Shiro’s goal was to make him cry. But he tries his damndest not to make more noise than necessary.

Toward what feels like the end—dear god Keith hopes they’re almost finished—Shiro makes him agree with all kinds of things he didn’t know he agreed with. They talk. If such a generous word can be applied to this situation, they talk about how Shiro can’t give up on the parts of himself he sees in Keith. How he doesn’t want to see Keith waste the time he’s not even sure Keith has, because-

Because no one is sure of what time they have-

“I don’t care if you’re wasting my time, or wasting Iverson’s time, or Griffin’s or anybody else’s—Keith, I do care if you’re wasting _your_ time, here. I don’t even think I can express to you how precious your time is.”

“Ah- I-”

Keith tries to say something, but Shiro administers strike after strike to the sensitive crease between thigh and ass, and for a while, all Keith can do is cry.

“I- I’m sorry Shiro-”

And this time it sounds like he means it.

From the way Shiro settles against the bed, and stops spanking him, and sighs a little, it sounds like Shiro believes him, this time.

“Okay. Okay Keith…”

He squeezes Keith’s hip, where his left hand is still anchoring him across the lower back.

There are tears all over his face when Shiro turns him upright and helps him get his slacks back up. He manages to take his hand away from where it’s been covering his mouth, grabbing at his own face to slick some of the snot and tears away—gross, and knowing it—and then sets about fastening the button. He’s still looking down, fiddling, tucking his undershirt back into his pants, when Keith finally speaks again.

“Thanks, Shiro.”

“Wh-”

Keith makes himself look up. At Shiro’s shock, Keith feels a smile pull across his face, feels the way it halts the flow of tears. He continues, “I think we both know I needed that.”

Shiro looks exasperated, but almost… helplessly fond.

“I think you make things hard on yourself. So I don’t know if you _needed_ it but…”

“Well, I deserved it, anyway.”

Meeting his smirk with one of his own, Shiro answers, “Try not to deserve another one, huh?”

“…I’ll try, Shiro.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As we all know, he will not succeed.
> 
> You know, when An_Aphorism posted [Irresistible Force Paradox](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25738933/chapters/62502376#workskin), I was already halfway through working on this thing and I debated heavily whether the fandom needed another fic like this. But then the prompts for bk week dropped and I was enabled and frankly I’m shocked that there isn’t more prekerb stuff like this. (Well not exactly like this. I may be the only one who’s ~~this~~ embarrassing about “talking about the punishment before it actually happens.” I’m a fucking whore for that dynamic in discipline and also I kinda think it fits these two? I just… love the way they talk to each other…)


	2. couldn't good, be good enough?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can definitely just read the first chapter of this and pretend I didn’t take it to this place but if you are as disgustingly thirsty as I am then welcome *smiling demon emoji*

Sure.

The first time Shiro spanked Keith, it was very much about discipline.

They didn’t even know each other all that well at that point. But Shiro had wormed his way under enough of Keith’s defenses that he’d first coerced a promise out of Keith that he’d never give up on himself and _then_ coerced a confession out of him wherein he admitted that physical discipline—not getting the shit beat out of him for no reason, or for the barest reason, but having his ass blistered because he’d been talked to and knew he deserved it—had been effective on him in the past.

Afterward, Shiro told him to try not to deserve it, again.

Keith does try.

But it has to happen a couple more times for it to stick.

Keith doesn’t exactly think of himself as a masochist. But there is something about pain that is so… cathartic. That releases something, in him. Guilt, or tension, or some other deep and slithering thing Keith doesn’t have a name for, as experienced as he wants to believe he is. He knows something of how hard, how unforgiving life can be. It’s another thing entirely to let Shiro be hard on him and then forgive him anyway.

Shiro _is_ hard on him. It’s kind of surprising, given the easy, almost teasing way he’s handled most of their interactions. But he hadn’t been exaggerating, the first time, when he said he didn’t _need_ anything more than his hand. And he didn’t. That Keith knew Shiro held back—that instead of hurting him the way he really could have, he just made it difficult to sit without squirming for a day or two—should have been warning enough.

But it _doesn’t_ stick the first time. And that is the last time Shiro used his hands.

The next time, a month or so later, Griffin starts the fight. Apparently the little asshole can’t keep his mouth shut, and even though he _should_ know better by now, Keith can’t exactly keep his temper under control when it comes to people who just have to dig too far past his boundaries. Which, hello, when you punch every person who mentions your parents, shouldn’t that be a beacon to the whole social circle that that topic is off limits? And maybe they had had another fight. And maybe Shiro had found him with bruised knuckles and unkempt hair and a trail of blood from the corner of his mouth—but couldn’t pin anything on him.

Because whatever; it wasn’t like Griffin’s injuries were visible. Keith had hit hard, this time, and in places where Iverson wouldn’t ask about, unless Griffin told—and James, who had left injuries in far-too-visible places, would have to take the credit for the first punch in this fight in order to tell.

Then, maybe, when both of them seem to have gotten away with it, Griffin had done some digging. And maybe he had felt sorry once he realized that Keith was—what he was. Talented, but still a charity case. An orphan. Not that Griffin would ever utter anything like an apology; he’d just jerked his chin at Keith from across the classroom after a test in mechanical engineering and Keith had gone, eyebrows raised and blood pressure just barely spiking, ready for a fight if that’s what the other boy wanted. He hadn’t expected to be led through a back maze of passages and out onto the roof, where James Griffin had unwrapped a fresh pack of some mentholated crap and offered the first cigarette to Keith. Keith had half been willing to forgive the bad blood between them.

Shiro, however, had not been willing to forgive either of them, when he came looking for Keith and discovered the two boys smoking.

Putting the actual fear of god into the other boy, Shiro had put one hand on James Griffin’s shoulder and told him:

“I don’t know how you got those into the Garrison. But I can guarantee you if I find your source, I will have that person court marshaled. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

Griffin nodded, hard but shallow.

Keith had to admire the way Griffin didn’t shrink into himself, under Shiro’s no-nonsense stare.

It wasn’t even a _glare_. It was nothing but a level look.

Then.

Shiro turned that look on him.

Obviously, the point of all of this has been to make Keith think. That time, Keith honestly hadn’t even been thinking about the fact that he was too young, at seventeen, to be able to share an apology cigarette with the person he’d decked and then had decked him. He didn’t think it through enough to realize that he’d end the night over Shiro’s desk with his pants around his knees. Obviously, he should have—which is why, that time, Shiro had declined to start with his hands.

That had been personal. Designed to make him think in excruciating detail about every last thing that had landed him there.

Like this latest time.

But somehow, it’s not entirely about discipline.

Look, it’s not Keith’s fault this last time, okay?

It’s like his entire life forces his reactions against this shitty week out of him. Like each bad thing coalesces together, festers and boils until he’s so out of hand even he’s surprised by what he does. By the way he starts to run with a small peccadillo and take it _so far past the line_. He’s pushing against the powers that be the way the desert will whine under the weight of a hundred days without rain.

  
As a child of The System, he knows very well _that_ he’s acting out. In fact, having received all the services he’s received under said System, he knows exactly _why_ he’s acting out. It almost feels comfortable, safe, to defy orders. After all the chaos—of finding out that Shiro is going to Kerberos, of finding out that he’s sick, of finding out that he’s broken up with Adam—it feels good to let the week go to absolute shit and _consciously_ not care about how the pieces fall. His internal stability is shot to pieces. It feels good to throw the external into chaos, too.

It doesn’t exactly feel good to have Shiro notice, and ask if he’s doing it on purpose, and then ask whether—since he _is_ doing it on purpose, and he can’t hide that—he ought to face some consequences.

It’s so purposeful, this time. The way the sole, yellow lamp from Shiro’s desk looks, and how Shiro doesn’t turn any other light on. The way he puts himself in position over that desk. The way Shiro asks, “You know why you’re getting this?” And the way, pressing his forehead against the wood so he doesn’t have to look at Shiro, Keith nods. Nor does it feel entirely great, or easy, to reply, because rather than make Shiro hit him to get him to comply, he makes himself answer, _knowing_ Shiro wants it out loud.

Keith says, “Yes, sir.”

But the first blow never comes. Instead, Shiro presses one hand between Keith’s shoulder blades. Keith jumps a little, anyway, but Shiro just leans down into Keith’s space and forces eye contact.

“I think you need to spend some time with this one.”

“…What d’you mean?”

“This wasn’t just you acting out,” Shiro says—and it’s almost to himself. It’s definitely not for Shiro’s own benefit, however, when he says, “I’m going to put you over my knee.”

Keith startles, a little. Shiro hasn’t done that since the first time. Over the past year, if it’s gotten to this point, Shiro’s usually given him a specific number—and made him count them. Keith _hates_ that. Which is, of course, why Shiro makes him do it.

There’s both determination and hesitation in Shiro’s eyes, now, as he tells Keith what he’s going to do. What he wants to do.

“If that’s too far, tell me no.”

Keith swallows. He’s so shocked at being consulted that he lifts his head up, forgetting to be embarrassed as he meets Shiro’s eyes and stands. “It’s not too far.”

Keith goes to his punishment willingly. He lets Shiro direct them to the bed, where Shiro sits down and spreads his legs to make room. He scoots back a little, so Keith doesn’t have to try to set his feet on the floor to balance himself. Both his knees and his elbows are resting on the bed, where he’s facedown over Shiro’s lap. He swallows down saliva, despite this small mercy. He’s obviously going to be here for a while if Shiro is trying to make him this comfortable.

It does go on for a while.

Shiro doesn’t even say anything to him. He knows that Keith knows exactly what’s going wrong, here. So it goes on—

And on—

Until the pain almost starts to feel good, to feel _necessary_ —until he’s not quite sure what he’s going to do with the rest of his life, unmoored by the rhythmic slap of someone reigning him into compliance.

It does go on for long enough that Keith starts crying. He hasn’t done that since the first time, either; Keith has been so used to deserving the harsher treatment that he’s learned a breathing technique, a stifling inhale and a controlled exhale for each stroke. But they’re so fast, now, one on the back of the other, and harder with each repetition, that Keith can’t catch enough of the beat to be able to harmonize to it. All he can do it let go, and scramble to make his body ready for what comes next.

Shiro stops.

Keith’s little hitched sobs aren’t quiet enough to avoid detection over the suddenly silence.

“Ah,” Keith says. He wants to ask if they’re done; but somehow, he knows they’re so very far from being finished.

Petting over him, like the flaming skin under his hand is something precious, Shiro hums.

“I’m going to give you fifteen more.”

Keith stills, gulps a little. That’s usually the number Shiro’ll go to if he’s using a strap; and the idea of that many more—particularly when, and Keith very pointedly does not miss, Shiro takes his boxers down as he’s telling Keith what he’s going to do—is terrifying.

Shiro has never done that before. Bared Keith to him. For how wildly inappropriate all of this is, he’s kept it relatively… Keith laughs to think it, but, relatively professional? Chaste? No, not that, but they’ve never been naked with each other, at least.

Not so, this time.

Six or seven, Keith is told, is usually enough to bring someone to tears, but Keith is stubborn—and has an extraordinarily high pain tolerance. So the idea of facing fifteen more, and each of those a deliberate stroke to his unguarded skin, is…

But he finds a part of him is comforted, rather than terrified. Especially when Shiro adds, “I won’t make you count them. You don’t have to say anything else. Just… be sorry. And breathe. And feel it.”

Keith just nods—a part of him, a part that will come back, but a part of him that is quiet and distant for now, wants to say, “Yes, sir,” again, just to make Shiro hear how wrecked his voice is, to make Shiro sorry for always making him sound so pathetic.

But that wouldn’t be fair. Or right.

That isn’t why he lets Shiro do this to him.

“Get ready.”

Keith braces himself, and Shiro delivers.

This is hard, and it’s personal, and it hurts so much worse on the skin.

Shiro hits him directly over his sit spot, one side and then the other. He’s already so sensitive there it makes him want to _scream_ —but—

But Keith is one hundred percent sure Shiro notices the way his crying becomes desperate and the way he starts rocking back into it.

***

Keith comes to him that night.

It’s a week before Shiro is supposed to leave. It’s hours after he’s left Keith with a lesson Shiro hopes he’ll remember while Shiro is gone beyond the orbit of Earth for two fucking years and unable to be there for him, physically. Because, as they’ve learned, that’s important for Keith. He is not a cerebral thing; he’s a creature of action, and while Shiro fully believes that Keith does, and will, remember the words he’s left him with, the physicality that’s been growing between them is sticking with Keith in a way nothing else is.

When Keith comes to his door in the middle of the night, he bangs on it like _he’s_ the one who’s been wronged, who’s been woken up at 2:30 a.m. on a Tuesday.

Shiro opens the door.

Keith looks directly into his eyes, hesitates, as if for event a moment he wasn’t sure Shiro was going to answer. Then he says, “I can’t sleep on my back, and it’s _your_ fault.”

Keith shoves his way into Shiro’s room.

Shiro lets him.

It's on an incredulous half-laugh that Shiro says, “I think we’ve established that that’s your fault.”

But Keith is done playing their game. Shiro has been treating Keith like a child; but Keith is the one who shoves Shiro bodily back across the scant space of his officer’s quarters, into his narrow bed and climbs up after him, all huffing indignant and too-eager hands.

“I swear to god, Shirogane, if you don’t fuck me before you leave for outer space, I am going to find my own ship and follow you up there.”

Shiro has enough of himself left—beyond the hand that’s creeping its way up the back of Keith’s loose t-shirt—to pull back, planting one hand against the side of Keith’s neck and holding him far enough away to look into his face.

“Is that what you want?”

Keith looks at him. “Been bent over enough tables by _you_ that I think I know what I want. And I’m gonna make sure you give it to me good and proper if it’s the last thing you do on Earth.”

“Keith, I thought… I’m _sorry_ -“

“Uh uh. You don’t apologize.” Keith reaches back for Shiro’s wrist and shoves it further up his side, so his fingertips are brushing against Keith’s nipple. “You just make it right.”

It could’ve been all reluctance.

There was a time Shiro wouldn’t have been sure that the coaching, guiding touches would be welcome.

But suddenly—

Well, not suddenly. It’s been weeks, _months_ , of Keith begging, frankly—and of Shiro fitting his pleas into something he could classify as wholesome—

Keith is under him, laid out on his side like the sweet, inexperienced thing Shiro knows him to be. It takes a lot of careful, reverent touching, a lot of stretching, a _lot_ of lubricant, and a lot of Shiro putting this beautiful boy through his paces, for Shiro to believe that Keith is ready. Splayed vulnerable and with his knee hitched up to his chest, holding himself there for Shiro to claim, Keith tells Shiro that he’s “ _ready, Shiro, god, you’re so—Jesus how can I be more ready._ ” It takes all of that for Shiro start shoving his hips against the cradle of Keith’s own.

And Keith gasps. And exhales.

Shiro watches. So carefully, as Keith's puffy rim swallows up the head of his cock. It’s like Shiro is drunk, watching the unreal way he’s welcomed into this space. The way Keith trusts him with something this precious.

He doesn’t know why, if, _whether_ he actually stops here. Whether he’s giving Keith enough time to adjust to him. Time is doing its own thing. In the liminal moment, he just wonders: how is he ever going to pay Keith back, for the way his trim, capable body accepts the girth of Shiro’s dick and keeps _taking him_ …?

“A-ahhhhnn, _Shir-shiro, please-_ ”

***

He’s always tried to be so quiet, when Shiro has touched him in the past. Whether he was just squeezing his arm in camaraderie or commendation or directing him toward the next logical step or knocking some sense, or at least direction, into him.

Keith’s never quite managed not to make _any_ noise. He’s used to making these kinds of sounds for Shiro—but he’s not used to letting himself be this loud, nor to the intimate edge his cries take on.

And now.

_Now_ , he makes every noise he needs to: a few harsh exhales and abbreviated moans as Shiro starts working his way inside. Then, he starts making the noses he _wants_ to: sharp and overwhelmed if not outright pained. Keith hopes Shiro doesn’t take this for pain, hopes Shiro knows his body and his voice well enough to recognize the difference.

Anyway, he’s not above stretching himself to his limits. Keith knows Shiro knows this. Shiro is intimately familiar with the way Keith disregards his flight curriculum in favor of his innate ability; for many reasons, not least of which is that the breaking of boundaries is not at all unlike what Shiro himself has done. Shiro knows exactly the way Keith experiences eagerness: never alienating himself from the fear, but rather, beckoning it, until he shatters past that point where a typical psychological maps say the self-preservation should be, versus where it actually _is_.

Shiro is the only other person Keith has ever known who’s been willing to go past that boundary.

To be as great as he’s capable of being.

Keith senses where that boundary is, in this moment, and _whines_ out the fact that he knows they’re not there, yet.

“Just a minute, baby…”

Shiro isn’t as deep as he could be. He has to give Keith a second to adjust; not because Keith wants it—no, in fact, he doesn’t want any more time at all, wants to be overstimulated and pathetic and made to take it—but because his body demands it, shuddering and shivering in little starts every time Shiro gets another thick centimeter of himself inside.

When he bottoms out—when he finally gives Keith those last couple inches—Keith feels that boundary shatter. He loves it. He chokes on the feeling that Shiro’s cock is so far inside him it’s at the back of his _throat_ and his eyes roll up into his head, but he loves it. He can hardly believe how much; but he knows he’s ready to give everything to the person who makes him feel like this. Who makes him release sounds like this.

“That’s right-”

Who makes him this out-of-control.

“Darlin, taking me so well.”

Who gives him permission to let go of the controls and let someone else cling onto them, for once.

“Ah, Sh- _shiro_ …”

Shiro presses his grip into the hand shoving Keith against the bed—and the other hand, pinning Keith by the upper back, fueling his body-wide thirst.

“You want me this deep, don’t you, babe?”

Keith nods, hard and fast and the first tears squeeze from the corners of his eyes.

“Yeah but I can’t- Jeeze- I want more but you’ve gotta stay like that for a second, please, I’m sorry, I need-”

Shiro rolls his hips—a little, to ease off of Keith. And then he stops. And Keith whines, high and pathetic.

“Don’t be _sorry_ , sweetheart.” For some reason, Shiro’s understanding makes Keith want to cry. His eyes are wet, but he’s out of tears. For now, he thinks. He cried earlier, under Shiro’s touch. Shiro can probably, _will_ probably, guide him there again. “I know exactly what you need. Haven’t I been showing you for months? That you can trust me?”

“How am I supposed to trust you when I still can’t sit down?” Keith quips. “You can’t even put me on my back right now.”

Shiro gives a shudder of a laugh in response.

…But then again, how can Keith not?

Despite the fact that the still-hot skin of his backside is pressing hard into Shiro’s hips, Keith is the one who allows him to do it. How can he not trust Shiro with every little bit of his fate, the way he’s been trusting him since the moment Shiro took back his car in the parking lot of the juvenile detention center?

He’ll trust him. Exactly like that, Keith decides.

So he nods, again. Keith can only help Shiro, can only agree and keens his yes into Shiro’s skin.

It takes a while—and frankly, once Keith feels ready, a lot of whining on his part—but eventually, Shiro gives it to him exactly how he’s asking.

“Tell me, if it’s too- if you’re not-”

The only thing Keith is _not_ is “not prepared for this to end, ever.” Slippery and easy-slick, the way Shiro fucks him is hard and expert and way more than Keith’s ever had before, once he’s gone quiet and animal-pliant beneath Shiro’s hands. He’s seen the way a sensation can make a housepet soft and content and unwilling to separate: how a dog will rest its head on your thigh until you stand up, or how cat might push its head against your fingertips until they go numb. He feels like this. Like a purring, mindless creature underneath someone who owns him, utterly.

It’s like Keith forgets that orgasm is even a thing, and at that, a thing that’ll bring this to an end—until he feels the telltale rhythmic catch—

And stops himself.

Taking the hand he had slung over the back of Shiro’s neck to the base of himself, and _squeezing_ , he cries out. He sounds distressed, and he knows it. Before he can give Shiro a real reason to worry, he explains, “I’m uh, I’m kinda afraid I’m gonna hurt you if I come with you inside.”

Shiro _laughs at him_. But it’s one of his beautiful, sincere laughs: the boyish one that reminds Keith that Shiro is only twenty-two, after all, not older and distinguished like everyone always tries to make him out to be.

Keith looks up over his shoulder, to where Shiro is sweating and smiling over him. He scoffs a little, and admonishes, “ _Shiro_.”

“Babe, you do not have to worry about that.”

“But I can tell how I’m-” Jesus he does _not_ want to describe out loud the way he can feel how he’s pulsing around Shiro, and how he feels that rhythm, out of control, and that when he comes, he’s going to clamp down and milk him and he’s just not sure that that’s not entirely too much. “What if it’s too tight?”

Shiro ducks his head, sorta presses it against the back of Keith’s armpit. Keith isn’t sure what Shiro’s face is doing, but he doesn’t think it’s good. Or, at the very least, he thinks it’s probably at his own expense. “Then I’ll pull out.”

Keith pouts a little at this—at the idea of Shiro pulling out. He can feel it. But he’d also rather Shiro had an out if he needs one.

“Seriously, don’t worry,” Shiro says, pulling back so he can look Keith in the face again. “Are you still feeling good, baby? Do you want to keep going?”

It doesn’t matter how annoyed Keith may have gotten at the man. Keith can feel the way his face goes soft and his eyes go half-lidded. And how he’s already rocking back onto Shiro’s cock, the leverage easy with Shiro holding one of Keith’s thighs up for him and his opposite hip pressed against the rumpled sheets. “Yeah, Shiro.”

Shiro’s smile, now, is a very different thing. “Good. You can keep your hand on yourself, if you want.”

Keith smirks. He removes his hand and sets it back along the thick muscles of Shiro’s shoulders.

Shiro smiles, too, sharp and sure.

He picks it up slowly, like at the start, but eventually, he’s looking at Keith in that way he does when he really wants Keith to pay attention.

“Gonna make this so good for you,” Shiro says.

And Keith believes him. He believes in this man with every part of him. He believes him when he fucks him like everything in him is focused on hitting that spot inside Keith that makes him see stars—and then, when he really grinds up into it, shifting his weight, curling his fingers against Keith’s scalp, and _pulling his hair_. Right up against the root, gripping and yanking just enough to get Keith to tilt his head back, and then fisting his hand to keep Keith in place.

Keith comes so hard it _scares_ _him_.

He sees white. It’s so good that he has to squeeze his eyes shut and hold in the terrible noise that wants to come out, only letting slivering cracks of sound out from behind his clenched teeth. It’s all he can do to ride it out, to ignore the way tears are flowing down the bridge of his nose and into the pillow. He isn’t sure how he’s going to survive.

But he does. He does, and as he’s coming down, he hears Shiro’s breath speed up and feels the way he thrusts into Keith’s tired, spent body. The way his hips snap and then retreat as he comes, the way he gasps his way through it.

Keith throws his arm more firmly over Shiro’s upper back and pulls him down. Shiro is crushing him and Keith hopes he never, ever stops.

He’s boneless, when Shiro lays him on his front. His body feels good: loose, and a little sore, both in- and outside his ass and in his hips. There’s a blanket draped over him to his lower back, careful against his backside, and Shiro is running a soothing hand over his shoulder blades, fingers drifting occasionally down his spine. Keith just pillows his hands under his cheek and lets Shiro fuss over him.

“Are you alright?”

Keith snorts. “You know the answer to that.”

“Do you need anything?”

Shiro continue to check in—continues to explain that he’s going to get some things to help clean them up. Keith just drifts and lets himself be spoiled.

He’s not sure it isn’t the last time.

And so he lets it happen until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore.

Until the only guilt he feels is regarding his future self’s ability to handle Shiro’s reaction to what they just did. Until even that is soft, and distant, the way the bruises will fade under his skin, purple and certain.

Something he’ll be able to recognize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …I’ll see myself out.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://utlaginn.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/utlaginn)!


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